Detained for protesting Israel’s war on Gaza: Mahmoud Khalil’s letter from ICE detention centre
In this letter, Mahmoud Khalil exposes the systemic injustices within U.S. immigration facilities and how his arrest reflects the crackdown on dissent, underscoring the urgent need to defend civil liberties and the right to protest
My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.
Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away. It isn’t the twenty-one-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.
Justice escapes the contours of this nation’s immigration facilities.
On March 8, I was taken by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents who refused to provide a warrant and accosted my wife and me as we returned from dinner. By now, the footage of that night has been made public. Before I knew what was happening, agents handcuffed and forced me into an unmarked car. At that moment, my only concern was for Noor’s safety. I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side. DHS would not tell me anything for hours — I did not know the cause of my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation. At 26 Federal Plaza [in New York City], I slept on the cold floor. In the early morning hours, agents transported me to another facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I slept on the ground and was refused a blanket despite my request.
My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night. With January’s cease-fire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.
I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to a family that has been displaced from their land since the 1948 Nakba. I spent my youth in proximity to yet distant from my homeland. But being Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel’s use of administrative detention — imprisonment without trial or charge — to strip Palestinians of their rights. I think of our friend Omar Khatib, who was incarcerated without charge or trial by Israel as he returned home from travel. I think of Gaza hospital director and pediatrician Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, who was taken captive by the Israeli military on December 27 and remains in an Israeli torture camp today. For Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace.
I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear. My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past sixteen months as the United States has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention. For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand US laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I am being targeted.
While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University. Presidents [Minouche] Shafik, [Katrina] Armstrong, and Dean [Keren] Yarhi-Milo laid the groundwork for the US government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining pro-Palestinian students and allowing viral doxing campaigns — based on racism and disinformation — to go unchecked.
Columbia targeted me for my activism, creating a new authoritarian disciplinary office to bypass due process and silence students criticizing Israel. Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by disclosing student records to Congress and yielding to the Trump administration’s latest threats. My arrest, the expulsion or suspension of at least twenty-two Columbia students — some stripped of their BA degrees just weeks before graduation — and the expulsion of SWC [Student Workers of Columbia] president Grant Miner on the eve of contract negotiations, are clear examples.
If anything, my detention is a testament to the strength of the student movement in shifting public opinion toward Palestinian liberation. Students have long been at the forefront of change — leading the charge against the Vietnam War, standing on the front lines of the civil rights movement, and driving the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Today, too, even if the public has yet to fully grasp it, it is students who steer us toward truth and justice.
The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent. Visa holders, green card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs. In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.
Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my firstborn child.
Mahmoud Khalil is a legal permanent resident of the US, who is being detained and targeted for deportation by the Department of Homeland Security for protesting Israel’s war on Gaza.
Yanis Varoufakis lauds the legacy of Tony Benn: An unyielding voice for change
Tony Benn‘s legacy is a testament to the power of relentless advocacy and the courage to demand the seemingly impossible. His influence not only touched those who met him but continued to resonate with activists worldwide striving for justice and equity.
On April 11, Tony’s daughter Melissa Benn, Jeremy Corbyn and Yanis Varoufakis addressed an audience at the University of Westminster dedicated to the memory of Mr. Benn – almost 100 years from his birth.
As Yanis recounted his personal encounter with Benn, a vivid illustration of Benn’s ethos emerges – a dedication to challenging the status quo and envisioning a world ruled by the many, not the privileged few.
A moment of lasting impact
Varoufakis described a pivotal encounter with Benn: “I was given direct instructions to take my dilapidated car and go to Colchester railway station to pick him up,” beginning what would be a transformational dialogue. Benn’s assertion that “there is always an alternative, and the alternative is resistance,” underscores his lifelong commitment to opposition against complacency and acceptance of the unacceptable.
A legacy of resistance
Benn’s rhetoric stood as a beacon against neoliberalism and the inevitability narrative. His words resound in Varoufakis’s recollection: “He called privatisation by his name, theft. He called austerity by its name, class violence,” showcasing Benn’s precision and bravery in naming injustices. In his mission, “Tony Benn remained a thorn in the side of power,” pushing against the constraints defined by those in authority.
Beyond rhetoric: A blueprint for action
Benn’s approach was not merely theoretical but a blueprint for action. His interrogative method, “What power do you have? Where did you get it from, and whose interests are you exercising it?” provides a framework for dissecting authority and demanding accountability. “He fought not to gain for himself […] but to overturn the table,” demonstrating his tireless push for structural change.
Democracy and dissent
In Varoufakis’s narrative, Benn emerges as a fervent defender of true democracy, warning us through actions and words. “His whole life was a refusal to accept injustice as inevitable,” encouraging a vision where resistance is a daily practice, not a distant ideal. By maintaining that “democracy is a daily constant uprising,” Benn’s legacy insists on active participation in shaping equitable societies.
An urgent call to continue the struggle
Wrapping up his tribute, Varoufakis reaffirms the ongoing relevance of Benn’s mission: “We will continue. We shall remain ungovernable by those who are governing on behalf of the ruling class,” pledging dedication to Benn’s goals. This article stands as an urgent call to action, honouring Benn’s relentless spirit in sensing democracy not as a ritual, but as a continuous labour for justice.
Tony Benn’s legacy urges us to embrace the struggle for equality and democracy, not as a historical artifact but as a living, breathing mission. In the spirit of Benn, let us persist in demanding transformation, for “when they tell us that it is impossible, we have to say, excellent, this is what we want, because this is what Tony Benn did.”
Democracy under fire: Yanis Varoufakis’ remarks in London on the vanishing right to protest
Yanis Varoufakis gave a speech alongside Juliet Stevenson, Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos, Jeremy Corbyn, Chris Nineham and Ben Jamal at a press conference titled ‘Democracy Under Fire’, at the Foreign Press Association, Royal Overseas League, London, on April 11. Here it is in full:
We are here today because democracy is on death row, because the treasured right to dissent is at gunpoint, because your capacity to do journalism is under fire.
I remember when I came to Britain as a student in 1978 how overjoyed I was to be in a country where I felt safe from the secret police, happy to be living in a democracy where dissent was protected. Back then, I recall Mick McGahey – the legendary Scottish miners’ union leader – warning me: “Don’t take it for granted my lad”, he said. “If democracy threatens to change anything, they will ban it.” I must say I did not believe him. I did not want to believe him. Today, his words are ringing true across this land, indeed across the West.
The West has not recovered from the Crash of 2008. Donald Trump, the British government’s current fiscal mess, Europe’s stagnation, trade wars that are – in reality – vicious class wars – these are all mere symptoms of the wholesale disintegration of the realm of financialised, globalised capitalism that prevailed in the 1970s, riding on the coattails of the Nixon Shock.
- The more concentrated power has become the more brittle its foundations are proving.
- The more brittle its foundations are proving the more determined the powers-that-be become to shut down debate, dialogue, democracy.
This is why the chilling winds of totalitarianism are blowing harder than ever today.
Here in Britain. In Germany. In France. In the United States.
The use of Newspeak is truly meant to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.
Just as in the 1930s, a moral clarifier has emerged: Then, you were marked as a problem if you did your duty to defend Jews from Oswald Mosley’s and Adolf Hitler’s brownshirts. Today, you are marked as a problem if you defend Palestinians’ right to exist as Palestinians. The point, as in the 1930s, is to contain dissent.
Fear of incarceration, of deportation, of exclusion is meant to enhance self-censorship and narrow down the range of dissent.
- The narrowing of the range of dissent is meant to narrow the range of what can be thought.
- The narrowing of the range of what can be thought, of what can be imagined, is essential in maintaining control by a regime that is losing control of its own faculties, of its own system.
This is why the system’s political handmaidens in government are working hard to ensure that protest is turned from a fundamental right into a gift from the state.
Perhaps the most remarkable method by which democracy is strangled is this phoney clash between Trumpists, who wax lyrical about free speech of bigots, and the centrists who present themselves as the protectors of core democratic principles. The case of Julian Assange demonstrates perfectly both sides’ hypocrisy.
- Was it not Trump, Biden, Johnson and Starmer who joined forces to criminalise Julian’s brilliant, accurate, essential journalism?
- Are Trump and Starmer not buddies in how they criminalise those of us who refuse to consent to the Palestinian genocide, including our heroic Jewish comrades?
Was it not the whole gamut of the German political centre complicit in banning me from Germany because we dared collaborate with German-Jewish comrades, heroes like Iris Hefetz and Udi Raz, to hold a conference in Berlin under the utterly subversive title “A Just Peace in the Middle East”?
With around forty peaceful left-wingers in prison, here in Britain, today, for the dastardly crime of organising protests that once upon a time would have been considered perfectly legitimate, I feel privileged to appear in front of you here today, honoured to be sitting next to Stephen Kapos and to Chris Nineham in a bid jointly to proclaim and to ring alarm bells:
- that democracy is on death row
- that the treasured right to dissent is at gunpoint
- that your capacity to do journalism is under fire.
It is time we took a stand.
It is time you took a stand.
If not now, tomorrow may well prove too late.
Indonesia’s deforestation crisis: Can a just transition save its rainforests?
The Indonesian government’s plan to clear an area of rainforest the size of Belgium for sugarcane-based bioethanol and food crops has sparked fierce backlash from Indigenous communities and environmental groups. The project, billed as a solution to food insecurity and renewable energy needs, threatens to accelerate deforestation in one of the world’s most biodiverse regions.
As Indonesia prepares to clear 3.2 million hectares of rainforest for bioethanol production, new data reveals a troubling paradox: the plan could release more carbon in 5 years than the bioethanol would save in 50. For policymakers weighing food security against climate commitments, here’s what the evidence shows—and what smarter alternatives exist.
The fatal flaws in current policy
- Carbon math doesn’t add up
- Projected Emissions: Clearing the targeted area would release 2 gigatons of CO₂—equivalent to running 300 coal plants for a year.
- Bioethanol Payback Period: Even under optimistic scenarios, carbon neutrality wouldn’t be achieved before 2075 (Climate Policy Initiative, 2024).
- Food security mirage
- Past Failures: Jokowi-era food estates produced just 34% of projected rice yields (World Bank, 2023) while causing $2.1B in environmental damage.
- Sugarcane Threat: The crop requires 2,500 litres of water per kg—draining watersheds that sustain existing farms.
- Legal time bomb
- Violates Indonesia’s own Constitutional Court Ruling No. 35/2012 on Indigenous land rights.
- Risks EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) sanctions on $25B in agricultural exports.
But is there another way? History suggests that Indonesia’s top-down, extraction-driven development model has repeatedly failed both people and ecosystems. Now, activists and scholars are demanding alternatives rooted in democratic land governance, agroecology, and climate justice – principles championed by movements like DiEM25.
A legacy of broken promises: Indonesia’s deforestation timeline
1960s–1990s: The Logging Boom
Under Suharto’s authoritarian regime, forests were treated as an economic free-for-all. Crony-capitalist logging concessions ravaged Sumatra and Kalimantan, driving orangutans and tigers toward extinction while enriching a small elite.
2000s–2010s: The Palm Oil Gold Rush
After Suharto’s fall, decentralisation led to chaos—illegal logging ran rampant, and palm oil giants drained peatlands, causing catastrophic fires. At its peak, Indonesia lost over 2 million hectares of forest annually, surpassing Brazil as the world’s deforestation leader.
2014–2024: Jokowi’s Mixed Record
President Joko Widodo imposed partial moratoriums on palm oil and peatland destruction, slowing deforestation slightly. But his “food estate” program repeated old mistakes: militarised land grabs, failed mega-plantations, and new deforestation hotspots in Papua.
2025: Prabowo’s Bioethanol Gamble
Now, President Prabowo Subianto is doubling down, replacing forests with sugarcane for biofuel—a plan critics call “greenwashing extinction.” Indigenous groups, already facing evictions, warn: “This isn’t development; it’s destruction.”
A DiEM25 blueprint for Indonesia’s future
1. Agroecology: Farms That Work With Nature, Not Against It
The triple-win model
Case Study: Sijunjung District, West Sumatra
System: Rubber + cinnamon + coffee polyculture under native tree canopy.
Results:
- 286% higher long-term profits than monoculture palm oil (ICRAF, 2022).
- Zero deforestation while maintaining 85% of biodiversity.
Policy Levers:
- Redirect fertilizer subsidies to agroforestry training (120/havs.500/ha for sugarcane setup).
- Amend Food Estate Law No. 18/2022 to prioritise diversified systems.
Instead of rasing forests for monocultures, Indonesia could adopt agroforestry—integrating food crops with native trees. In West Sumatra, the Mandar ethnic group already grows cinnamon, coffee, and rice beneath forest canopy, preserving biodiversity while earning steady incomes.
“Why destroy forests to plant sugarcane when smallholders can feed us without burning ecosystems?” asks Andika Putra, an agrarian activist in Jambi.
2. Energy Democracy: Solar Over Sugarcane
Bioethanol from deforested land is a false solution, scientists say. Indonesia has 40% of the world’s geothermal potential and vast solar/wind resources—yet invests just 3% of its energy budget in renewables.
Untapped Potential:
- Geothermal: Could meet 40% of national demand (vs. current 5%).
- Solar: Just 0.3% of viable rooftops utilised (IESR, 2024).
“A just transition means solar panels on rooftops, not sugarcane on stolen land,” argues Dewi Sartika of the Indonesian Renewable Energy Society.
Cost-benefit breakdown
| Policy Option | 10-Year GDP Impact | Emissions Reduction | Job Creation |
| Current Bioethanol Plan | +$12B | -0.5 Gt CO₂e* | 480,000 |
| Agroforestry Transition | +$18B | +3.2 Gt CO₂e | 1.2M |
| Renewable Energy Push | +$29B | +4.1 Gt CO₂e | 2.7M |
*Net emissions when accounting for forest loss
- Land Back: Indigenous rights as climate policy
Immediate actions
- Halt the sugarcane project pending independent climate and human rights reviews.
- Redirect subsidies from agro-industry to smallholder agroecology and solar/wind cooperatives.
- Recognise Indigenous land titles—no more “food estates” on stolen territory.
- Enforce Constitutional Court ruling by formalising 8.2M hectares of Indigenous land claims.
- Establish Land Bank (Bank Tanah) to mediate conflicts:
- 30% of disputed estate lands could be swapped for degraded areas.
- Adopt Brazilian-style deforestation alerts:
- Real-time satellite monitoring reduced Amazon clearing by 74% in 2023.
Globally, Indigenous-managed forests store twice the carbon of industrial plantations. Indonesia’s 2013 Constitutional Court recognised Indigenous land rights—but the government still ignores 8.2 million hectares of customary forests.
“We protect these trees for free, while corporations get paid to destroy them,” says Siti Maimunah, a Dayak leader in Central Kalimantan.
The path forward
The choice is stark: repeat history’s mistakes or forge a new path.
Indonesia can either become the world’s next clean energy leader—or repeat the mistakes that made it the deforestation capital of the 2000s. The tools for transformation exist; what’s needed is political courage to wield them.
“This isn’t just about saving trees,” says climate researcher Avi Mahaningtyas. “It’s about saving Indonesia’s future.”
Want to act?
- Support WALHI (Indonesian Forum for Environment).
- Demand EU-style deforestation-free trade laws.
- Push for debt-for-nature swaps to fund forest protection.
Final word
Indonesia’s forests don’t have to die for its economy to live. The solutions exist—but only if democracy, not corporate greed, guides them.
Yanis Varoufakis and Jeffrey Sachs livestream, April 22: The six crises confronting humanity
We are living through a time of converging crises – environmental, economic, geopolitical, and social. But how did we get here, and more importantly, how do we chart a way forward?
To unpack these urgent questions, we are hosting a special live conversation between two leading voices of our time: economist, author and our co-founder Yanis Varoufakis, and world-renowned economist and UN advisor Jeffrey Sachs.
The two worked together a decade ago to prevent Europe from harming itself by crushing Greece. They failed. Since then, Europe’s self-harming policies exacerbated by a lethal dependence on, and servility to, the United States have had nasty repercussions for Ukraine, Palestine as well as Europe’s relations with China.
Now that Trump is back, with Europe’s Green Deal already abandoned, the world is facing the perfect storm: intense trade (and thus class) wars, a mounting Cold War with China, an ultra-hot war in Ukraine, a heart-wrenching genocide in Palestine, and an accelerating climate emergency.
On April 22, Sachs and Varoufakis will dissect these “Six Crises Confronting Humanity”, offering a piercing analysis of the structural failures driving global instability – and daring to imagine how we can fix them.
Their dialogue will be unflinching, rich with insight, and – true to DiEM25’s mission – geared toward radical, democratic solutions.
This livestream is part of our ongoing aim to elevate urgent, dissident voices and foster cross-border solidarity in the face of crisis. And you can be part of the conversation.
When and where to tune in
- April 22, 2025
- 18:00 CEST
- Watch live here
Join us live to ask your questions and engage directly in the chat.
Together, let’s challenge the narratives that uphold the current order, and work toward a vision of a just, peaceful, and democratic world.
De-extinction: Scientific breakthrough or Pandora’s Box?
As biotech companies race to resurrect extinct species, policymakers face urgent questions about ecological risks, disease threats, and corporate control of nature
In a Dallas laboratory, a startup named Colossal Biosciences is splicing woolly mammoth genes into elephant cells. In Melbourne, another company edits marsupial DNA to recreate the thylacine. From Harvard to Silicon Valley, the controversial field of de-extinction is attracting massive investments, with proponents promising to “reverse environmental destruction” through genetic engineering.
But as the science advances, a growing coalition of scientists, ethicists, and policymakers warns that this technology could unleash uncontrollable ecological chain reactions, unknown pathogens, and a dangerous privatisation of conservation.
Case studies in de-extinction
- The mammoth in the room
Colossal’s flagship project aims to create cold-resistant “mammophants” to repopulate Siberia. While CEO Ben Lamm claims this will combat climate change by restoring Arctic grasslands, Russian ecologists note:
- The Pleistocene Park experiment (using existing herbivores) shows limited success
- Permafrost is already thawing catastrophically
- $75 million invested here could instead protect 150,000 sq km of intact Arctic habitat
- The Tasmanian Tiger gamble
Thylacine Biosciences promises to resurrect this marsupial predator by 2028. But Australian biologists warn:
- Its ecological niche has been filled by invasive foxes and feral cats
- No living surrogate exists—wombat pregnancies would be high-risk
- Could spread dormant retroviruses when reintroduced
- The passenger pigeon paradox
Revive & Restore’s project to bring back this extinct bird raises questions:
- Would flocks of 2 billion (like pre-1900) destroy modern crops?
- Who compensates farmers for damage?
- Could they carry avian flu variants dangerous to poultry?
Policy black holes
While the EU and Canada have begun regulating gene drives and synthetic biology, most nations lack specific de-extinction policies. Critical gaps include:
- Liability frameworks
- Who pays if revived species become invasive?
- Are corporations liable for disease outbreaks?
- Global governance
- No UN treaty addresses cross-border release of de-extinct species
- WTO rules could force countries to accept “biotech conservation” products
- Patent problems
- Over 1,000 CRISPR patents already filed on extinct species genetics
- Could create “GMO wildlife” monopolies
“We’re seeing the corporate capture of conservation,” warns Dr. Vandana Shiva. “First they patented seeds, now they want to patent entire species.”
The disease time bomb
When researchers revived a 30,000-year-old “zombie virus” from Siberian permafrost in 2014, it remained infectious. De-extinction could accidentally unleash:
- Ancient pathogens dormant in recovered DNA
- Hybrid diseases from mixing modern and ancient viromes
- Novel vectors if resurrected species lack natural immunities
“It’s not just bringing back the mammoth—it’s bringing back its entire microbial universe,” cautions virologist Dr. Jean-Michel Claverie.
A progressive alternative
Instead of risky de-extinction, DiEM25 and allied scientists propose:
- Rewilding 2.0
- Invest in “low-tech” rewilding first before gambling on unproven de-extinction.
- Prioritise living megafauna (bison, wolves, beavers) that already have measurable positive effects.
- Reject “conservation by corporation”—keep species restoration in public hands.
- Genetic Rescue
- Use CRISPR to help endangered species adapt (e.g., coral heat resistance)
- Ban profit-driven patents on conservation genetics.
Conclusion: Life finds a way – but should we?
As Jurassic Park’s Dr. Malcolm warned, scientists were “so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” Thirty years later, we face that choice in reality.
De-extinction may someday have limited, carefully regulated applications. But in our climate emergency, the most ethical, effective conservation remains protecting what still lives—not chasing ghosts of the past.
Policy proposals
- Moratorium on commercial de-extinction until international safeguards exist
- Public ownership of all extinct species genomes
- Strict liability requiring de-extinction firms to insure against ecological damage
Corporations and billionaires (like Colossal’s backers) privatise scientific progress while socialising risks.
They call it de-extinction – we, in DiEM25, call it disaster capitalism for the Anthropocene.
Le Pen and the ‘lawfare’ debate: Justice or political weapon? With Yanis Varoufakis, Glenn Greenwald and David Broder
In an illuminating discussion hosted by DiEM25, our co-founder Yanis Varoufakis was joined by award-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, and Jacobin’s Europe editor David Broder, to examine the recent court ruling against Marine Le Pen and explore the broader implications of ‘lawfare’ – the strategic use of legal systems to sideline political opponents.
With Le Pen’s conviction for misusing EU funds and subsequent ban from France’s presidential race, this verdict has fuelled a significant debate about the intersection of justice and politics.
At the heart of the conversation was the fundamental question: Are we witnessing justice served, or are courts effectively replacing voters in democracies worldwide?
Varoufakis, Greenwald, and Broder provided a wealth of insights into this growing phenomenon where judicial actions are perceived as a tool to obstruct electoral competition, particularly against right-wing populists like Le Pen.
Greenwald began by highlighting the pattern of legal interference with popular candidates, suggesting that “lawfare” has been weaponised to deny the electorate their choice. He cited examples from Brazil, the United States, and Romania to illustrate how legal systems have been leveraged against candidates like Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro.
“The only way a justice system can really have efficacy is if the public perceives it as apolitical,” Greenwald argued, warning against the dangers of such perceptions eroding democracy itself.
Varoufakis stressed the importance of maintaining political rights even for those deemed unsavoury by the establishment. He framed the left’s opposition not around Le Pen’s character, but on the principle that courts should not remove political rights.
“Political rights should never be rescinded…every radical Democrat should fight for this,” he stated, mindful of the historical instances where charges were used to undermine democracy.
David Broder offered a European perspective, arguing that this judicial intervention tone-defy crisis could inadvertently bolster Le Pen’s base. By presenting herself as a political victim, Le Pen has, according to Broder, managed to transform the narrative from one of crime to one of victimisation.
“The action of judges taking candidates off the ballot doesn’t empower voters,” Broder remarked, emphasising the potential for such actions to detract from substantial political debates, such as those about social welfare and economic policy.
The discussion concluded with a powerful reminder of the importance of preserving democratic processes and resisting the instrumentalisation of legal systems for political gain. It’s about ensuring that democracy is not just a procedural term but a principle deeply respected and actively upheld in political discourse.
As these discussions unfold, it’s clear that defending democracy necessitates vigilance against any attempt to subvert it, whether through blatant power grabs or more subtle legal manoeuvres.
DiEM25 urges progressives and active citizens to engage deeply with these issues, particularly in resisting mechanisms that could one day be turned against any political dissenting voice, left or right.
Watch the full discussion here
Should Le Pen be barred? What is the Left’s right answer on this conundrum?
This is a crucial conversation to have in general, not particularly about Marine Le Pen. It is about the principled position that the democratic Left must take on the question of who has the right to remove the political rights (the right to vote and to seek votes) of whom.
We know what can happen when political rights can be rescinded by the courts en masse – just look at the distortions in the American political system caused by the loss of political rights of ex-convicts, a huge portion of America’s working class – especially of Black Americans.
- We know how progressive Presidents in Latin America have been targeted with lawfare, from Rafael Corea to Lula, with catastrophic effects for their people.
- And we have seen how the pathetic legal efforts to prevent Trump from running made a terrible thing grow impossibly worse.
But let me narrow this down by looking at Le Pen’s case in some detail. Three different questions arise in her case:
Question 1: What do we, the Left, want to see happen to Le Pen?
The obvious answer: We want to see her get crushed at the ballot box, in the polling stations. We want the masses to turn away from her and her merry authoritarian xenophobes. We want the likes of Le Pen, Trump, Musk and Orban to lose the discursive battle, politically, ethically – to fall from grace in the eyes of all decent, sensible people. We should be enjoying watching her hypocritical law-and-order policies being exposed: lest we forget, her party ran on an authoritarian law & order policy agenda of banning ankle bracelets in favour of incarcerating everyone at the drop of a hat – including Ms Le Pen, last week!
To recap, here is the gist of my first question: Does banning Ms Le Pen from participating in the next presidential elections help do any of this? Quite the opposite: the ban turns her into a pseudo-hero, it helps her portray herself as a victim and of democracy as a game that only the Radical Centre is allowed to win.
Of course, the fact that Le Pen and her mates of the global Nationalist International may benefit politically and morally from her ban does not, on its own, suggest that her ban is unjustified. More questions need to be answered before we get to that verdict. So, here is a second question:
Question 2: Was Le Pen guilty of the charges? Did she improperly funnel resources from the European Parliament to her national headquarters?
I have no doubt she did. But, let me put this in context. MEPs are given dazzling sums of money to employ staff plus additional monies to fund political work in their home countries. To be precise, the staff allowance per MEP last year was set at €30,769 monthly. It is enough to hire an assistant, a researcher and a local constituency worker, and still have many thousands of euros left over. The residual monies are routinely sent to the national parties whose funding from the national parliament is always tighter. Cash strapped party leaders are known to oblige MEPs to do this. And, yes, some MEPs find ways to channel that excess to their relatives. I recall a centrist MEP once boasting that it was “common to employ one’s wife while sleeping with one’s staff”!
So, yes, Le Pen is probably guilty but of a crime so widespread in the European Parliament that singling her out, and only after she began leading opinion polls, smacks of a selective justice of the type that a genuine democrat will find hard to defend.
But, for argument’s sake, let’s agree that, even if it is selective justice, it must be carried out – that this was the case in front of the judges and that, therefore, they had no choice but to deliver a guilty verdict.
Two further issues arise: One concerns the indefensible use of so-called “provisional execution” clauses. In short, Le Pen was banned from the election before her appeals were heard. That’s how Lula was prevented from running in Brazil so that a rightist businessman could win (Nb. Plans that came to naught as the fascist Bolsonaro surprised both the Left and the Right to win). When, later, Lula’s appeal was heard and the charges dismissed when it was too late to stop Bolsonaro. Does the Left really want to say that the use of “provisional execution” is bad when used against ‘our’ people but quite alright when they are used against someone like Le Pen? That would be an inexcusable own goal.
The second issue is this: Should a conviction for any crime mean the loss of political rights? I think not. Political rights should never, under any circumstances, be suspended. This is, I am convinced, imperative. A principle worth fighting for. And one that, so far, is respected in most Anglosaxon jurisdictions. Who can forget Bobby Sands, the convicted IRA man, running for Parliament – and winning a House of Commons seat – from his Maze High Security Prison cell? Even Trump could have run for President in the United States had he been sent to jail by that New York judge. I think this is right and proper – and something that Europeans must embrace as a worthwhile principle.
Which leads me to my third and last question:
Question 3: Should politicians be exempt from criminal charges just because they are running high in the polls?
Of course we should not. If Le Pen’s judges had guts, short of waiting for her appeals to be exhausted before removing her political rights, they should have thrown her in jail but not ban her from running in the elections. Letting her out of jail but banning her from running is a political gift to the enemies of democracy who can now claim, with some legitimacy, that democracy is a sham.
But what of a convicted murderer, you may ask. Should he or she be allowed to run for President from prison? Yes, I say, they should! “What if they win?”, you may then ask. “What do we do then? Let them take office?” Good question. Here is my answer: If, despite one’s conviction, one is elected, then the voters, the people – we – will have ended up with the delicious constitutional crisis that we deserve. No judge can, or should, resolve that.
Conclusion
To conclude, political rights should never be left to judges. Anywhere. Ever. The moment you let the judiciary decide who can seek our votes, our oligarchies are bound to distort what little prospects of a democracy we have. No sensible progressive can “trust the courts” in an exploitative system for which the so-called separation of powers is at best a heroic assumption and at worst a ruse. It is as naïve as it is to believe in an independent central bank!
Anyone who cares about the democratic idea should be deeply worried with the ease with which the panicking Radical Centre bans an ultra-right opponent they think may beat them at the polls. Progressives, understandably, fear that the same courts and the same means will be used tomorrow to ban us. I agree. They will! In 2015 they shut down our banks to overthrow people like me, here in Greece. If that hadn’t worked, they would have tried to ban us from running for office – indeed, rightist lawyers tabled charges against me at Greece’s Parliament, just when I resigned the finance ministry. The charges? High Treason – the allegation being that I “undermined the national currency” which, comically, they identified as the… euro.
So, yes, we, the Left, have every reason to fear that what they are doing to Le Pen today they will most definitely do to us if we rise sufficiently in the polls. However, that should NOT be the principal reason why we oppose Le Pen’s ban, or of that clownish Georgescu’s ban in Romania. We should oppose these bans for deeper reasons: Because no one’s political rights should be rescindable. For any reason. Anywhere. Ever!
Having the guts to say that, especially in defence of the political rights of an abominable politician we should want to crush at the polls, is the litmus test for a radical democrat, for a Left worth its salt.
Yanis Varoufakis in London on April 11: Europe’s crackdown on democracy and Tony Benn tribute
Our co-founder Yanis Varoufakis will be in London this Friday, April 11, for two major events that hold significant political importance: a press conference on the escalating threat to democracy in Europe and a special discussion honouring the legacy of Tony Benn, one of Britain’s most influential left-wing figures.
The first event, a press conference titled ‘Democracy Under Fire’, will take place at 14:00 at the Foreign Press Association, Royal Overseas League (6 Park Place, London SW1A). At this critical moment, with democratic rights increasingly under siege across Europe, Varoufakis will be joined by Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos, 87, to speak out against the growing repression of freedom of speech and public assembly in the UK and beyond.
The event will also feature Chris Nineham, Vice-Chair of the Stop the War Coalition, who is facing criminal charges from the UK government for organising a peaceful protest in solidarity with Palestine. Kapos himself has been questioned by the Metropolitan Police, facing the threat of formal charges.
The press conference will also highlight the ongoing investigations into high-profile political figures, including former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, and actor Khalid Abdalla (known for The Crown).
Recently, police raided a Quaker meeting house to arrest six women for discussing the issue of Palestine. The government is planning even more restrictive laws to curtail the right to protest. Currently, there are 40 left-wing political prisoners in British jails – a situation echoed in countries like the United States and Germany.
Later that day, from 18:30 to 20:30, Varoufakis and Corbyn will join Melissa Benn, daughter of the late Tony Benn, for a public conversation at the University of Westminster (35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS). This event will celebrate Benn’s lasting impact on the European Left, with reflections on his commitment to participatory democracy, public ownership of strategic sectors, and his anti-imperialist foreign policy.
BOOK TICKETS FOR THE TONY BENN EVENT HERE
Together, the speakers will discuss how Benn’s ideas continue to resonate within progressive movements across Europe and around the world, cementing his legacy as one of the most vital advocates for social justice and democracy in modern British political history.